The 41st annual meeting of the International Aldosterone Conference (IAC) was held in Boston, on 29 and 30 April 2016. There was a time when the IAC was heavily supported by industry, by invitation only, fares covered for speakers and accommodation for all attendees. Now the corporate cupboard is bare, except perhaps for clinical trials of compounds in development; those freely registering for the IAC now are half the number there were in the times of plenty, pay a non-trivial registration fee and cover their own expenses.

In 2016, the Journal of Endocrinology made a modest financial contribution to the IAC, support which was very welcome. In addition to their support, members of the editorial office suggested to one of us (J W Funder) that as 2017 marks the 30th anniversary of the cloning of the human mineralocorticoid receptor (hereafter MR), a commemorative special issue of the journal might be in order. Their suggestion was readily accepted, provided that Maria-Christina Zennaro was prepared to act as a co-editor. This was agreed, timelines and logistics set in place (more or less), invitations issued and gradually – only a minority before the 31 December deadline – the contributions came in.

All were subject to the normal journal processes of refereeing, and in addition subjected to review by both special-issue editors: the native English speaker of the duo is regarded by his friends as a stickler for correct language, and by others as a hopeless pedant. We issued a dozen invitations, on the basis that in the unlikely event that all were accepted it would constitute a bumper issue, across the spectrum of MR studies. The two co-editors were held in reserve, in terms of contributing chapters: in the event there were eight acceptances to the invitations, and the co-editors then both became …